Article polishing machine



6, 1960 F. N. RUSHTON ET AL 2,962,742

ARTICLE POLISHING MACHINE Filed Oct. 30, 1958 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTORFREDERICK N. RUSHTON JOHN M. MEAD GEOFFREY T. JONES Mm yfm ATTORNEY 5Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR FREDERICK N. RUSHTON JOHN M. MEAD ATTORNEYGEOFFREY T. JONES Dec. 6, 1960 F. N. RUSHTON ETAL ARTICLE POLISHINGMACHINE Filed Oct. 30, 1958 NED Dec. 6, 1960 F. N. RUSHTON ETAL2,962,742

ARTICLE POLISHING MACHINE Filed Oct. 30. 1958 :5 Sheets-Sheet s z a J"?INVENTOR FRED CK N. RUSHTON N .MEAD FFREY T. JONES ATTORNEY UnitedStates Patent 6 2,962,742 ARTICLE POLISHING MACHINE Frederick N. Rushtonand John M. Mead, Baltimore, and Qeoffrey T. Jones, Monkton, Md.,assignors to Washington Aluminum Company, ln'c., Baltimore, Md., acorporation of Delaware Filed Oct. 30, 1958, Ser. No. 770,682 8 Claims.(CI. 1588) This invention relates generally to metalworking apparatus,and more particularly, it pertains to an article polishing machine, suchas for wire or rods made of metal or similarmaterial. It is to bepointed out that although the machine comprising this invention isillustrated in connection with the brushing and polishing of metallicwire or rod, it is not limited thereto as it can be readily adapted tocleaning, brushing, and polishing other materials, of either a metallicor non-metallic nature.

It is sometimes required that a polishing operation be performed on wireor rod subsequent to its drawing or extrusion in order to obtain acommercially acceptable product.

In some cases, it is necessary to perform the polishing operation of thewire in more than one stage; for example, a rough preliminary brushingstage followed by a final smoothing operation thereof.

It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a simple,efiicient wire polishing machine, having readily accessible brushes forservicing or replacement.

It is another object of this invention to provide a wire polishing orbrushing machine having two consecutive polishing stages.

Still other objects of this invention are to provide wire polishingapparatus which is economical to manufacture, compact, easy to installand maintain, and which is efiicient and reliable in operation.

These and other objects and advantages of this invention will becomemore readily apparent and understood from the accompanying specificationand drawings in which:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of an article polishing machine embodyingfeatures of the invention with the brushes removed for purposes ofclarity;

Fig. 2 is a horizontal cross-section, partly' broken away, of thearticle polishing machine of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a cross-section taken along line 3-3 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 4 illustrates a partial cross-section of a detail and alternatebrush assembly for the article polishing machine of Fig. l; and

Fig, 5 is a cross-section taken along line 5-5 of Fig. 4.

Referring to Figs. 1, 2, and 3 of the drawings, there is shown, ingeneral, an article brushing and polishing machine which consists of ahousing 10. This housing is of annular shape and arranged to receive aring gear 12 centrally and coaxially therein. A pair of race ballbearings 14 are inserted on either end of housing 10, as bestillustrated in Fig. 2. A pully 16 is machined to fit within one bearing14, and a cap 18 is similarly inserted within the opposing bearing 14.

Both the pulley 16 and cap 18 are axially bored to receive a hollowshaft 20 which also serves to secure them together by means of lock nuts22 located at each end. Cap 18 and pulley 16 are both additionallydrilled at two diametrically opposite places to receive a pair of shafts24. Shafts 24 are each fitted with a spur gear 26 2,962,742 PatentedDec. 6, 1960 in tooth engagement with ring gear 12 as illustrated inFig.3.

A race bearing 28 supports each shaft 24 at one end; while a pair ofrace bearings 30, separated by a spacer tube 32, supports the other endof each shaft. Each shaft 24 has threaded ends 34 adapted to receive theinternally threaded heads 38 of short shafts 36 located at opposite endsof each shaft 24.

A brush assembly 40, as best illustrated in Fig. 2, is made up of aplurality of brush wheels 42 assembled upon a threaded thimble 44 andthe wheels 42 are secured together by means of a nut 46. An entire brushassembly 40 is closely fitted to each short shaft 36, and it is securedthereon by means of a nut 48. The brush wheels 42 of adjoining brushassemblies 40 are dimensioned to bear against a wire or rod 50 passedtherebetween and through the hollow center of shaft 20. The wire or rod50 can be fed through the machine from an electrolytic bath after beingcoated therein, and after passing'through the machine is coiled on areel (not shown).

As shown in Fig. l, a belt drive 62 is utilized to drive pulley 16, thusradially rotating short shafts 36 about hollow shaft 20 and wire to bepolished 50. This belt drive 62 can be coupled to a source of power,such as a constant speed or variable speed motor.

In addition to their orbital motion about wire 50,

shafts 36 also rotate as they are driven by spur gears 26 within thehousing 10. Brush assemblies 40 are thus given an opposing rotary motionwith respect to each other and with respect to the axially disposed wire50.

As the wire 50 is passed longitudinally through the machine, it receivesa first stage brushing operation by the brushes 42 of the first set ofbrush assemblies 40 and then receives a second stage polishing operationby the brushes 42 of the second set of brush assemblies 40 located atthe opposite end of the article brushing and polishing machine.

The brush assemblies 40 on the upstream side of the apparatus may be ofdifferent coarseness than those on the downstream side' In order toprevent brush wheels 42 of brush assemblies 40 from slipping under heavyduty, they may be assembled to a longitudinally serrated bushing 52 andpeened thereon by upsetting the metal as shown in Figs. 4 and 5. Bymeans of a square hole 54, serrated bushing 52 is placed over a squareshort shaft 56 and secured there by cotter pin 60 and internallythreaded head 58 provided on shaft 56 can then be used for securement tothreaded shaft ends 34. For high-speed production runs, a carbided orhardened liner 64 is provided at the entering and leaving ends of thehollow shaft 20.

In order to develp longer use of polishing brushes, an adjustablecarbaloy platen (not shown) may be added in place of one brush assembly40 opposing the other brush assembly and pressing the material beingpolished against the other brushes 42.

While there has been here described and illustrated a preferred form ofthe invention, it is apparent that certain variations may be madewithout departing from the spirit thereof. Accordingly, limitation ofthe invensite ends of said housing, respectively, and spaced from saidfixed ring gear, a hollow drive shaft extending longitudinally throughsaid housing and said race bearings means including a pulley spaced fromsaid housing and having an annular portion thereof extending from saidpulley and arranged between the inner surface of one of said racebearings and the outer surface of said drive shaft and secured to saiddrive shaft for rotation therewith, a cap structure positioned in theother end of said housing and having a portion thereof located betweenthe inner surface of said other race bearing and said outer surface ofsaid hollow drive shaft and secured thereto for rotation therewith, saidcap structure and pulley being fixedly secured together by said driveshaft, said pulley and cap structure having diametrically opposedopenings therethrough, a bearing located in each of said diametricallyopposed openings in said cap structure and pulley, a pair ofdiametrically opposed shafts extending through said openings, spacedbearings in said cap structure and pulley for supporting saiddiametrically opposed shafts for rotation within said cap structure andpulley, means for mechanically coupling each of said pair ofdiametrically opposed shafts to said ring gear to rotate in orbitalmotion with respect to said ring gear, and a brush assembly at at leastone of the corresponding ends of each of said pair of shafts and insurface contact with said article continuously passed through saidhollow shaft, said brush assemblies being arranged to simultaneouslyrotate and revolve about said article for brushing and polishing thereofso as to impart a high lustre to the external surface thereof.

2. An arrangement as recited in claim 1, and additionally means forrotating said pulley.

3. An arrangement as recited in claim 1, wherein a brush assembly ispositioned at each end of said pair of shafts.

4. An arrangement as recited in claiim 1, wherein the means formechanically coupling each of said pair of shafts to said ring gearincludes a spur gear.

5. An arrangement as recited in claim 1, and additionally means forsecuring each said brush assembly to its corresponding shaft so as toprevent slippage thereof.

6. An arrangement as recited in claim 5, wherein each brush assemblyconsists of a plurality of brush wheels.

7. An arrangement as recited in claim 1, and a base for said annularshaped housing.

8. An arrangement as recited in claim 1, and means for picking up saidhousing.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS

